The Bone Chamber

Initially, I was pretty hyped to read this when I first learned about this book. All I needed to hear was that it has witches and that it has queer women. However, both elements weren't enough for me to care for this book. It's clear that inspiration was drawn from the movie version of Practical Magic. It held less whimsy and charm than what I was expecting from this book. Instead of focusing on the Fernweh women, there were only snippets here and there. Even when there was something it was just to mention this ancestor had this power without more elaboration. The dialogue was painful to read at times, it was very childish especially where the teenagers were concerned. The author didn't do a very good job of portraying how teens actually talk to one another. The way it's told it appears that it's just an impression of how teens converse with one another. Not to mention there were times when something would be described to the point of exhaustion. Which got old fast and I found myself zoning out, more often than not.

I also really don't care for the relationship between Georgina and her sister. For the first half of the book, their relationship was off-putting to me. Which is a shame because I am a sucker for strong relationships between sisters. As for the relationship itself it might as well have not have been there at all. There were very little scenes between Georgina and her love interest. The explanation for that, later on, was valid but poorly executed. Needless to say, I could take the romance or leave it, cause it wasn't really there, to begin with. As for the big reveal, it was predictable and I saw it coming a mile away.

While that is not always a bad thing for me on top of everything else; it just further added to my dislike for this book. What I did like was the last few scenes, during the big reveal and towards the end of the book. I can't say a lot because that goes into spoiler territory that I don't plan to get into. But I felt it was written well and held strong enough emotion to drive its point home. Even still it wasn't enough to warrant three stars in the end. I'm not saying it's a bad book in general, but I can certainly say this just wasn't the book for me. As it stand I'm not a huge contemporary fan and that's also the problem as to why I did not care for this book.